Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony

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“There will be war to the death against all Puerto Ricans.”

– Puerto Rico Chief of Police, E. Francis Riggs

When it won the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico as a new “possession.” The American who led the invasion, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, promised “liberty” to Puerto Ricans. He also promised “prosperity” and “the advantages and blessings of enlightened civilization.”

This never occurred. Puerto Rico was stripped of her land and natural resources by U.S. banking syndicates. By 1934, the theft was so extreme that Puerto Ricans organized an island-wide agricultural strike. In response to this strike the Yale-educated Chief of Police, whose father owned the Riggs National Bank, promised that “there will be war to the death against all Puerto Ricans.”

This web site documents some of that war.

It documents the murder of innocent Puerto Ricans; the bombing of Puerto Rican towns; the blackmail of Puerto Rico’s governor; the beating, torture and execution of Puerto Rican prisoners; and the hiding of all this information from the American public.

This web site also presents a short biography of Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, who devoted his entire life to the independence of his country.

Albizu never realized that dream. Instead, he spent 25 years in jail: where he was systematically tortured, then declared insane.

More in-depth information on Albizu Campos and all of these historical areas – with extensive footnotes, sources and bibliography – can be found in my book:

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157 Comments on “Home”

I need press to expose Keith St Clair in Puerto Rico at ESJ Towers. He looks like an angel in the press but in reality he may have embezzled extorted and defrauded. Contact me the-whistleblower currently being sued by St Clair for defamation.. I have tons of documentation and if you saw the gentrification take over my Chelsea neighborhood in NY you’ll recognize the atrocities being committed In Puerto Rico toward the same ends. PLEASE CONTACT ME.

Mr Denis,
I really enjoyed this book. It was very enlightening for a mainlander with very little previous knowledge of the Island. I am heading down to PR in early December to film a documentary and I’d love to ask you a few questions before heading down. Please contact me if possible. Thank you!

Loved the book. I learned so much. This really deserves more exposure, like several episodes as a Netflix series, similar to the Central Park 5 series and how that made more people aware of the inequities and injustices in our criminal justice system.

I’m 68 Yeats old. I was a victim of
the repression against all the liberation movements during the
decades of the 70’s to the 90’s.
I decided to saddle up my Rocinante and take on our
struggle for liberation and the
right to be a sovereign country.

Im shocked! Im born in the US and my parents are born in PR. Im saddened to learn of my peoples history at the hands of the US. Im struggling with my true heritage history and how I was brainwashed by US culture and now understand the structured racism towards me. Time for a change.

I read this book because I am interested in learning the history of Puerto Rico. My wife is a native of the Island. As I read the book she argued about everything I told her of my readings. It became clear the version of the history of Puerto Rico that she learned in school was different from the contents of your book. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and greatly appreciate what you have written. Thank you!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been listening to P.R.’s on the island being interviewed by NPR/The Intercept ( I’m a diasporatic (sp?) islander.. raised there, moved to the mainland decades ago ); and the one thing I keep hearing as a common thread between all of those interviewed: artists, students, activists, common citizens, ( with the exception of a farmer ), etc.. and that thread,is a lack of commitment/understanding to stick to a path to betterment of the islands’ future condition. Always attaching conditions or not completely able to articulate their individual desire with definitive clarity, even when using Hurricane Maria as a “wake-up” call. How many wake-up calls have there been since 1898?!? What became of those wake-up calls?

One example I disagree with ( heard on “The Intercept” ) is iLe’s title of the song “Odio.” Odio is not the right word defining the title of the song re: the events that took place in 1978. A more appropriate word is: Fear. What drove the insular police establishment to do what they did to these two young men? It wasn’t hate. The word hate is not only misplaced, it moves away from the real reason why these cops, and the vast majority of cops on the island since the early 1900’s up to and including now, have behaved in the manner that they have. Why fear? It’s fear of the man with the bigger night stick ( the U.S. ). It’s as simple as that. Hate is the fabricated notion that the U.S. elites supplant in their ( P.R. cops ) heads, just to get the job done.. and with extreme prejudice against their own people. Especially when the islander offender’s acts threaten the socio-economic status quo. Because a threat to that status quo isn’t threatening to degrade the islander’s welfare, but that of its master: The U.S. Government and it’s corporate counterparts ( Excluding the 99% of U.S. citizens most of which aren’t too far behind the islander’s plight the way things are going ). The island cops didn’t do this to their own citizens in the numbers and in the manner that they’ve been doing prior to the U.S. invaded P.R. That’s because the islanders as a whole hadn’t developed a sense of self-loathing ( a collective self-hatred; which is not what I think the song is trying to convey ) that they have now. So, by using “Hate” as the title of that song, ignores and and tosses aside the REAL motivator. By doing this ( mislabeling the title ), and getting the islanders of this generation and the next to believe this to be true, is just adding another brick in the wall of the enormous denial that the islanders and some of those in the diaspora continue to project. I believe that fear itself is what caused the artist to name the song “Odio” instead of “Temor.” And, when the can keeps getting kicked down the road since the rebellious events that occurred between the 1920’s to 1950’s ( 1978 ), you get this. This kind of thinking is just going to send a signal to the oppressor that things are going well for them and that nothing is really going to change with regard to the island’s socio-political landscape from what it is now. A self-loathing ( created by the U.S. via intimidation, racial superiority, integrated with violence ) combined with fear creates everything one needs to know why islander’s continue their seemingly inexorable existence.

I heard a self described republican voting student attending UPR that he wants statehood for island. But, that he’s intent on leaving the island to the mainland for better economic opportunities. He also stated that the U.S. provided a tremendous amount of aid in the aftermath of Maria, insinuating that the island should be very grateful for this; qualifying this act as a rationale why statehood would be best for P.R. What this student misses, is that the U.S. has continuously sucked the P.R.s economy dry for the past century via imposed policies, and b.s. laws that have very little to do with the enhancement of islander welfare. Had the island been granted statehood or its independence then ( in 1898 ) P.R. likely would have had enough resources to have taken care of its own business. Has P.R. received the same kind of response for assistance as mainland states have? Hurricanes weren’t borne yesterday. They’ve been part of the islander’s lives since Taino times and before. Somehow, through all those hundred’s of years, Borinquen/P.R. was able to get back on its feet. And, by leaving the island, he’s taking his education/skills elsewhere, thereby further degrading the potential of the island’s economy for his own convenience. An island nation that he apparently doesn’t have enough faith in. But, he is a card carrying republican, and he likes his U.S. citizenship…When it suits him.

I heard a couple of female activists talk about their boldness in attempting to do the right thing for the people of the island through acts of courage that were well placed in most people’s eyes whether P.R. or not. Only to be resisted and scorned by what seemed to be the majority of their own people. The very people that they were there to help and improve their lots in life. They talked about solutions and the solutions can be varied and many. However, no solution will be possible without the overcoming one thing. And, that’s the FEAR that permeates most of the islanders being. That fear ( or any reason for that matter ) is and will always be the culprit that sabotages any of those efforts. It’s what sabotaged Albizu’s mission. And this man tried harder than any P.R. in the history of the island. One of the activists got defensive ( recent PRI show ) about ( people other than islander’s ) islander’s ignorance about their condition and how disrespectful that notion is. “People know that there is homelessness and poverty and abuse, and corruption going on. What people don’t have is are clear ways to understand it.” She go’s on to say that that the islander’s have been negated knowledge and that to be labeled as ignorant places guilt upon them. An excuse. This activist, unfortunately ignores the reality of what the answers to these dilemmas are. What the activist omits is: There is plenty of written history about what caused and exacerbated the the islander’s homelessness, poverty, abuse and corruption to be happening to the degree that it has. Who isn’t taking personal responsibility to read one’s history ( and validating it ), esp when something hasn’t been right for such a long time?? I have to go back to my two postulations: Fear and then denial. These to behaviors get things to where they’re at. Until these two demons get conquered out of the existence of enough of the islander’s minds, the islander’s are always going to be stuck. Anything you do under these conditions to try to make things better, will be a lost cause. Islander’s and other’s may want to start with Nelson Denis’ book for starters, and then have meetings to discuss it all over the island. It can only lead to enlightenment, and further questions and study around the nation’s history. This kind of action will determine what future P.R. will have more than anything else; or rather, more than anything that has been attempted since Albizu’s time.

Lastly, I heard a humble farmer speak about a renaissance of agriculture on the island; esp referring to the young people. This is a very good thing. And, you know what? There wasn’t anything that I could find any disagreement with what he said.

Any of you out there: Please take me on if you disagree with what I’ve said ( in any way ) on this post. I encourage you to do so. It’s one of the only ways to get closer to truths and a better collective understanding.

I’m a first generation Puerto Rican American — both parents born on the island, but I was born in the states — in Bronx, New York, to be exact.
I’ve learned only the barest details about Puerto Rico’s history, including the depraved treatment of Pedro Albizu Campos by the US govt. Looking forward to reading your book that I ordered today from Amazon. Thank you for writing and publishing it!

Thank you for writing this book. I was born in PR but raised in NYC, and I am ashamed to say that I know nothing of my history. I was raised to be a proud PRican but how can that be when until I picked up your book I had never heard of Don Pedro, Vidal, Los Independistas. While I often criticize the US’ imperialistic actions abroad, I knew nothing of the horrors committed against my people.
I am incredibly proud of the courageous men and women who fought for their freedom and mine. I am giving a copy of your book to everyone I know. You have inspired me to research, and read all I can about the island’s history, key figures, and politics. Thank you for opening my eyes, and heart with this knowledge. And thank you for writing a book that is controversial, challenges our convictions, and has immortalized our struggles.

At this moment in time. I think it’s past due that people from all countries, read your book. So that one day when ALL PUERTORICANS and non-Puertoricans march AGAIN in DC and major cities for JUSTICE, then, maybe, WALL STREET VULTURE PIGS AND EVERY CORRUPT TREASONOUS POLITICIAN WILL GO DOWN AND PAY FOR THEIR CRIMES. BUT THE REVOLUTION NEEDS TO START WITH PEACEFUL PROTESTS. THESE DEGENERATES NEED TO BE STOPPED.

I totally agree the damages done to Puertoricans self- image national -,identity self -esteem . We know that the lawmakers in Washington have legalized and signed into law the profounding abominable to literally exterminate poor indigenous native americans and now The middleastern people and Puertorico still being ethnically cleansed exterminated us one piece of new US legislation at a time .

Thank you for writing this book. I was born in Puerto Rico but raised in New Jersey. Every summer we traveled back to PR to visit my granparents on my father’s side of the family. When i was in my 20s I remember going to Old San juan and seeing the mural of Pedro Albizu Campo. All I was told was he was an “Independentista “who was Harvard educated and that his mural was sacred. I moved to Puerto Rico at the age of 35. I am now 42. It had been my mother who told me about his horrible plight and torture. I bought your book and was astounded that i knew close to nothing about Puerto Rican history. Your writing captivated me. In just the first chapter i felt I was in that prison cell being starved and treated with no humanity. As I read on I learned so much of what should have been known to me by my age. The disgrace I feel towards America becaise of their treatment of Puerto Rico is profound. I highly recommend your book to all of my friends baxk home who are just as ignorant as I was about how Puerto Rico has been treated since America had “acquired ” PR.
So thank you again for this beautifully written book on our history. May you have continued success in all your life endeavors.
Gratefully,
Elizabeth Lacomba Buonomoelizabethlacomba7@gmail.com

I was present when the author had a discussion on his book and the Ponze Scheme in an art museum in Spanish Harlem in 2016..I should of taken time to ask him a couple of questions about Mr.Campos, I’m dealing with something in that nature, I was being stalked in P.R. by Westchester County P.D. and a bunch of Mexicans in 2010 & 2011. When I went back to P.R. in 2014 P.R. P.D. in Arecibo told me it was P.D. stalking me, I can imagine they used Campos situation to swindle P.R. P.D. (manipulation tactics) to embarrass P.R. P.D..Doing homework on American, Medical, and Government embarrassments I noticed is how they been manipulating the system.Now I’m dealing with oppressors in the Justice system and they’re using mind manipulation boxes known as (the russian black box) the CIA ran experiments in the 50s.MKUltra was one and the V2K “voice to skull” where when i explained to hospitals what was going on i was called schizophrenic. They explained those experiments in the book THE PENTAGONS BRAIN. Anyway my homework didn’t stop there, doing more research.Into human rights.In 1990 the Washington Heights sued the N.Y.P.D &Westchester County P.D. for running experiments on orphan kids, the state settled it for them and I mentioned that because under federal law of human rights it’s illegal to run experiments on humans without their consent under title 45 and 46. Under United Nations laws it’s illegal to torture anybody anywhere in the world.Trump tried to legalize torture after he sware in(WATERGATE). Now I mentioned that because the mind manipulation box was used for torturing pple and the V2K as well.I’m Adrian Nunez a TI (Targeted Individual) being electronically harassed by Westchester County N.Y. Justice System, my human rights and constitutional rights are being violated. 10 1/2 years of psychological torture.They’re using Gang Stalking were is a torture method.Combination with psychological warfare and manipulation tactics..Deadly psychology, They’re publicising their torture making it seem as a show that really is a diversion, psychological warfare has been illegal since 1974 43yrs.

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pr-colonia
It used to be the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico was touted as the Showcase of Progress and Democracy in the Caribbean as a result of its accelerated industrialization, the development of its infrastructure, education and health systems and a constitutional system of government in the 1950s and 60s.

At present, however, many United States news outlets and economic reviews are writing about Puerto Rico´s astronomical public debt, its economic crisis and its ramifications. At present the debt is estimated at 73 billion U.S. dollars – up from 32 billion dollars in 2006, one year after the beginning of a recession in Puerto Rico that is expected to persist until 2018, although given the present fiscal crisis that is doubtful.

Beyond the junk bond status of Puerto Rico bonds, with unemployment estimated at between 13 and 14 per cent, a 44.9 per cent poverty rate, with 84 per cent of its children living in poverty stricken areas, only four out of ten of those able to work doing so, and at a $19,000 median annual income that is half the income of Mississippi, the United States´ poorest state, Puerto Rico can hardly be called a showcase of anything but the failure of a dependent economy based on foreign, predominantly U.S. investment, low wages, tax exemption for foreign corporations, and dependence on U.S. federal funds.

Population and other demographic data are also indicators of a showcase gone sour. The new wave of Puerto Rican migration to the United States has been continuous and massive numbering 84,000 in 2014 alone, including professionals, with a population of 5.1 million in the United States while an aging population 3.6 million remains in Puerto Rico.

Thus the constitutional system of government established in Puerto Rico in 1952 with the founding of the Free Associated State was a misrepresentation and also a failure as it left intact the backdrop for the present crisis which is the colonial status of Puerto Rico. Despite its autonomy in fiscal affairs, U.S. Congressional laws govern over Puerto Rican legislation in the areas international relations and commerce, monetary issues, migration and emigration, maritime traffic (with U.S. Maritime Law applied to Puerto Rico), customs, labor relations and trade union organization, border patrol, airspace and transportation, communications, defense, and many other areas.

In terms of its environmental protection and policy, ecological balance, climate change, global warming Puerto Rico is also subordinate to outside United States agencies, interests, policies, and power. This is very dangerous for the Puerto Rican population as Puerto Rico is a small island country in the Caribbean. In this regard, Puerto Rico´s internationally known geomorphologist, Dr. José Molinelli, recently warned that the Puerto Rico Planning Board lacks protocols for handling events in tsunami prone zones.

In the present situation of fiscal and economic crisis, the Puerto Rican legislature adopted a bankruptcy law which would have made it possible for public corporations on the Island to declare bankruptcy and thus be enabled to restructure their debt. The debt of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority alone is estimated at 9 billion U.S. dollars. However, this legislation was overruled by the United States extraterritorial Federal Court which operates in Puerto Rico. Action which followed by Puerto Rico Resident Commission in Washington, Pedro Pierluisi, for a law to be enacted in order that the Federal bankruptcy law be applicable to Puerto Rico has gone unheeded. A broad movement in Puerto Rico attempting to have Puerto Rico exempted from application of U.S. maritime law has also gone unheeded.

Response by the government of Puerto Rico has been to raise taxes, fees for a broad spectrum of services, as well as reducing services, and budget cutbacks in general – in general, a neo liberal austerity program styled after International Monetary Fund formulas that will lead to much hardship for the people of Puerto Rico.

Convoking of a Constitutional Status Assembly to deal with the colonial status, unity of purpose, greater protection of local business… are some of the objectives voiced in interviews of Puerto Rican leaders by Cándida Cotto, a reporter with the Puerto Rican pro-independence newspaper Claridad, on necessary actions in the face of the present fiscal and economic crisis hitting Puerto Rico at present and the hands off position of the United States president and Congress which have negated Puerto Rico the tools necessary for confronting this crisis. The answers included that the United States must be forced to address the crisis in Puerto Rico, including putting an end to its colonial relationship with the United States.

However, as noted in a number of editorial appearing in Puerto Rico major daily newspapers, El Nuevo Día and El Vocero, responds by the three branches of the United States government have been non-committal and even indifferent.

Puerto Rican pro sovereignty legislator Luis Vega Ramos, said “We need to understand, once and for all, that we can only depend on ourselves for moving forward, although many actors were involved in creating this financial bubble, we should not be hopeful that our creditors will negotiate with consideration of our better interest. And the three branches of the U.S. federal government have been reluctant to allow us necessary tools and support such as exemption from U.S. Maritime Laws, applying Federal bankruptcy law to our public corporations or support from the Federal Reserve of the U.S. Treasury.”

Vega Ramos also referred to the fact that other jurisdictions and countries have also been affected by the financial bubble that has now exploded, including as a result of the actions of creditors.

“We must act with unity of purpose if we are to be successful in the difficult upcoming negotiations and to accomplish this we must have full transparency and citizen participation as never before seen in Puerto Rico. We need to all feel a part of the solution.”

According to Pro Independence Party leader, Juan Dalmau, the Puerto Rican community in the United States has a determining role because more than half of the Puerto Rican population is presently living in the United States where they participate in politics and form public opinion regarding Puerto Rico. When Puerto Rico is not a problem it can be swept under the rug. However, now that Puerto Rico is a theme, a problem, it can exert pressure.

He noted that all international financial analysis that have been done regarding the situation in Puerto Rico closely connect the situation to Puerto Rico´s colonial situation, political subordination and lack of powers therein, and the need to resolve that.

Wilma Reverón Collazo, a leader in the National Hostos Movement for the Independence of Puerto Rico, and others have called for an independent audit of Puerto Rico´s public debt, reparations to Puerto Rico for the exploitation, repression and environment damage the Puerto Rican people have endured at the hands of United States colonialism and solution of the colonial status through a Constitutional Status Assembly and independence.

The power relationship and political subordination of Puerto Rico to the United States points to a colonial status issue. Colonialism is an historical anachronism that has long been declared contrary to international law and human rights, from which emanates, in the case of Puerto Rico, the injustices inherent in the colonial relation which the United States has maintained with Puerto Rico since its invasion of the Island in 1898, one hundred and seventeen years ago.

Commitment to grassroots democracy is totally consistent with support for the decolonization of Puerto Rico as colonialism is also totally contrary to democracy. For the country ruled, democracy is non-existent where one country rules over another, if even if there are elections every four years to elect local authorities. Taking into account that in Puerto Rico the United States controls commerce, international relations, immigration, monetary issues, communications, postal matters, defense, labor relations, and others, to truly support democracy in Puerto Rico, its decolonization has to be supported as the first step for the Puerto Rican people to live in a democracy.

The issue of the support of the Puerto Rican people for independence and there not being enough support, therefore, is not an impediment for solidarity with Puerto Rico. Support for decolonization is a matter of principle precisely because colonialism is contrary to human rights, contrary to self-determination and contrary to democracy.

Regarding decolonization, what comes into play is what should be the mechanism in order that the Puerto Rican people freely exercise their sovereignty and their right to self-determination which are the inalienable rights of all peoples as recognized by international law, specifically by Resolution 1514(XV) of the United Nations General Assembly (1960), which is considered the Magna Carta of Decolonization.

Further, it must be stated that regarding the future status of Puerto Rico, the only option recognized by international law as inalienable, is the right to independence. International law maintains that all peoples have the inalienable right to self-determination and independence. The Free Associated State status, free association under international law and statehood for Puerto Rico are not inalienable rights. Further, Puerto Ricans are a separate people from the people of the United States.

Before the United States invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, the nationhood of the Puerto Rican people had been forged during more than four hundred during which our culture and national identity became clear and distinct from that of any other people in the world. The Free Associated State status and statehood for Puerto Rico are not inalienable rights. Besides being an inalienable right, because Puerto Rico is a nation, international posits that independence is the natural aspiration of peoples who have not yet acquired full self-government.

The plebiscites, referendums and the like carried out in Puerto Rico are not the solution precisely because they have not been free exercises of the will of the Puerto Rican people. They have taken place in the context of colonial rule, military occupation, repression and persecution of the independence forces, economic dependence and colonial legislation and U.S. Congressional legislation. Thus, their results cannot be said to reflect the true will of the Puerto Rican people. For these reasons they have not been an exercise of self-determination.

While the United States has maintained that it will accept the will and decision of the Puerto Rican regarding its status, it has obstructed the process by maintaining that the issue is its internal matter and not recognizing the role of the United Nations. Precisely through these referendum and plebiscite processes, it has used its power in Puerto Rico maintain the present status, which is the option most consistent with its economic, political and other interests in Puerto Rico.

These are the reasons that the Puerto Rican pro-independence forces and even some supporting other options continually resort to United Nations Resolution 1514(XV). It is recognized that the United Nations has a role to play. In order for an expression of the will of the Puerto Rican people regarding its future relation to the United States to be a free exercise, it must be supervised by the United Nations because it is understood that otherwise the determining factor in any exercise will be the power relationship of domination of the United States over Puerto Rico.

As regards the present situation as regards the fiscal and economic crisis, the situation is increasingly billed as a political crisis which will force attention to the colonial status and the need to resolve it if the fiscal and economic situation are to be addressed. Regarding the political status and independence, while it is true that a lot of work needs to be done by the pro-independence forces in order that support for this option grow substantially, there is in Puerto Rico an overall sentiment that the present situation and the colonial status must be resolved.

Cleavages along which Puerto Rico’s main political parties are divided delineate options which, according to the rhetoric of leaders of even the pro statehood and pro Free Associated State parties, move the country away from the colonial status. Even those supporting statehood (which would be the culmination of colonialism in Puerto Rico) continually attack the Free Associated State as colonial and the second class U.S citizenship of Puerto Ricans under the Free Associated State as the root of the country’s problems.

Meanwhile, within the pro Free Associated State Popular Democratic Party, there is a growing so-called autonomous, pro sovereignty wing, which espouses greater powers for the Free Associated State, including to freely engage in international trade relations, and that outside of certain areas only powers specifically delegated should be exercised by the United States over Puerto Rico.

The vibrant social movements active today in Puerto Rico regarding women’s rights, civil rights, community empowerment, the environment, youth, sports, culture, labor, cooperative economic endeavors, and many other areas, are in constant encounter with the colonial status as an impediment to their objectives. Thus, these social movements are also a base of the anti-colonial, potentially pro-independence movement that will participate in any future exercise in self-determination supervised by the international community, specifically the United Nations.

These movements and the pro-independence movement and organizations overlap in many scenarios, and along with the action of the United Nations and international solidarity, especially that of the people of the United States and our Latin American and Caribbean region, are the basis for the future possibility independence and democracy in Puerto Rico.

The inalienable right to self-determination is for all of the Puerto Rican people to exercise including those who do not support independence, but in order to be legitimate and a true exercise of self-determination with a level playing field for all options, including independence, the mechanism for its exercise but must a fair one that abides by international law, not any plebiscite or referendum.

Such is the case of a Constitutional Status Assembly, a mechanism for decolonization which is gaining ground in Puerto Rico as it becomes more urgent for the colonial status issue of Puerto Rico to be resolve. Within the United States progressive sectors, support for Puerto Rican decolonization and a fair mechanism for the decolonization process and independence to take place, is crucial.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2510353?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents also book by Cesar Aayala and Rafael Bernabe has great information about the whole event.
Stock Image
Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History since 1898
Ayala, César J.; Bernabe, Rafael
Published by The University of North Carolina Press
ISBN 10: 0807831131 ISBN 13: 9780807831137

Luis Pacheco
October 13, 2016
I would appreciate your help in locating a bill in the U.S. Senate that supposedly would grant independence to Puerto Rico. I think you are referring to the Tydings Bill; it never progressed.

By now I think I know better. We really need to wake up, this the longest time waiting for our independace…1492 to 1898 and 1998 to now 118 long years of abuse. Oh yes they give you bread…but only crums…only a few enjoy the whealth…the rest only struggle.
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.
Well we have a slow death…a death of our heritage and our spanish traditions……although it will take forever.

I would appreciate your help in locating a bill in the U.S. Senate that supposedly would grant independence to Puerto Rico. An article in a recent edition of one of the local newspapers, ‘El Nuevo Dia’, made a passing reference to such a bill, but it was not clear if this was an actual piece of legislation, or something that was being discussed as a possible bill. I’ve searched the Senate bill status webpage, but have not been successful in identifying anything with Puerto Rico, except for the PROMESA act.

I would greatly appreciate your help in locating this bill, if it exists.

Great blog & website! The Filipinos were treated as bad or worse! I was there in late 70’s in USAF & was appalled at how the country was run under Marcos. Death squads masquerading as police snatching up people who spoke out against repressive regime that were just never heard from again & if you said anything about it on base you found yourself suddenly being shipped off PDQ to Greenland, Turkey, or some other garden spot. Today I’m a 50+ yr old history major writing MA thesis on American Imperialism & can vouch whole-heartedly for everything I have see here from the quick peek I just took. Keep up the good work!

As a PR born on the island and raised in NY … I might add in 1944 – I am shocked at how many PR’s have no or little idea about their history. Campos and others have written much about that time and place … wake up PR’s … don’t be so dumb about yourself, it’s so Americano!

As long a Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth, it will be a political pawn of Washington. Most Americans have no idea what or where Puerto Rico is. Laws governing the island are made in DC. Unlike states, PR cannot fall back on states vs. federal authority. Unlike independent nations, it can’t act on its own authority. Instead, Puerto Rico is addicted to Washington without the means to free itself. It is the deformed child of bureaucratic bumbling, not unlike the District itself. The choice is: full statehood or complete independence – a choice only Puerto Ricans can make. Neither is easy and both carry risks, but the path out of Hell eventually leads to a better place, or at least to a place where decisions are made by Puerto Ricans alone.

My father’s house was used by the military as a command post by the army during the revolution. He documented (wrote) me a letter about what he went thru during the revolution with his family . At that time he was a student at the University of mayaguez. He knew a lot of people who was involved. He is still alive and would like to share what he went thru during the 1950 revolution in Jayuya , PR .His house is where the flag was raised.

I was born in Humacao, in 1966, a year or so after Don Pedro died …as i remember in school no one spoke of Albizu Campos, and most adults in PR mentioned him in an almost “live by the sword, die by the sword”, type of manner..in 1985 i was studying in College and i became more familiar with the Puerto Rican Indepedance movement and what i discovered was that the US manipulated , stole, cheated, and killed anyone who in their mind was a radical or Communist, the PR Police was almost fanatical in hunting down College Students who protested the Commonwealth status and protested for Independence, Now in 2015/2015 thanks to Nelson Denis’s book more Americans of Puerto Rican heritage are wiseming up to the real history of what commonwealth in PR is all about, sad but we need to know all of our history…

I read this book and I wasn’t surprised that the foreignors treated us bad. But for our own government to continue to defraud it’s own people and to continue till this day is more than Criminal. I grew up in New York City and my parents never taught us anything about our culture. Being born in Puerto Rico and lacking the knowledge of how our people struggled to get ahead to find out our own GOVERNMENT kept us down really upset me! For our own government to allow this to happen then we’re to blame. Our culture is one of the most beautiful culture in the world. Our people are every where representing who we are. Our blood carries us around the world. Weather you was born in Puerto Rico or not! We are one proud people. Why do the people of the Island not stand up for what is right? What is the reason every politician we put in place is crooked? Then we clamor to be independent! Why? Who will run our country? More crooks whose interest is their own? Look at the exodus of our country! Doctors, nurses leaving for better paying jobs. Hotel industries empty, factory closed down. Our country devasted because our plantations were taken away. What will be the future if our country and people. God bless us all!

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I grew up in PR for ten years and experienced the sacrifices my grandparents endured due to the gov’t negligence in PR. I then moved back to the South Bronx in NYC and things got better for me but not my grandparents in PR. They are both deceased now but that doesn’t matter. The PR economy is bankrupt and the gov’t as corrupt as it has always been.

Where is the accountability for the federal funding provided to PR? What political parties are lining their pockets with these funds? Close to 50% of the gov’t workforce was let go over a decade ago in PR.

Thank you for the website. I am catching up after years of systemic cultural oppression living here in the US and watching my parents suffer from socio-economic discrimination. But they are the most spiritual people I know. I want to learn everything I need to know what happened.

In response to the Jan. 5, 2015 Blog: The Mafia Godfather of Puerto Rico:

Many of these recent posts, if they’re mostly true, should have sounded the alarms a while ago not just simply among the PR diaspora, but REALLY, among the PR islanders. But none of the posts have had much of an effect in rousting the islander’s to do what needs to be done ( a herculean infusion of powder milk biscuits required?? ).

Questions to be asked:

1 ) This site seems to be one of current “touchstone”/“go-to” websites as it relates PR islander history/politics. Why is it then, that very, very few people are seen commenting on this site, on either the home/blogger pages? There is absolutely no dialogue between people commenting. After all, it’s well known PR’s #1 pastime is talking politics. However, one can go to most daily newspapers in the U.S. and find up to hundreds of bloggers commenting on a wide range of “benign in comparison to PR” issues on a daily basis.. The PR diaspora must be approaching 10 million… Out of those numbers, how many on the island are doing anything to effectively deal with all of these purported serious abuses by a power, that arguably engages in a sociopathic/empathetic (chronically tolerant/forgiving ) predator/victim relationship?? Talk, talk, talk…. Ever since 1898, 1952, etc…; All the while, getting the rug pulled out from under one’s feet, and summarily dismissed in relation to bottom line issues?

2 ) Are ALL of the blogs/comments that have been printed on the english version site, been appropriately translated in spanish and applied to the spanish language version? If it hasn’t been accomplished, it needs to be.

A thought that’s crossed my mind is this: For supposedly being a “sister” nation and performing in a manner reflective of what reasonable U.S. Constitutional governance is, I see a defeated people. Defeated generations ago. Not physically/intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually. It was planned ( by the U.S. ) and executed precisely in a manner to elicit the former. But without telling the PR’s the truth of their ( U.S.’s ) real intentions ( ongoing ). And, it took the church as well as the state to pull this off ( ongoing ). That concert was performed without missing a note; after learning from past mistakes. The islander PR’s and any of those whom were born and raised on the island long enough prior to leaving, seem to have contracted this “malignant disease” that has led to “degenerative moral back-bone” in almost all aspects of their lives. The Cubans/Mexicans and others’ figured it out pretty quickly and did what was necessary to extricate themselves from the toxic relationship they found themselves in….long ago.

To the town square with Oscar our national hero
With this slogan, we will meet in all of the 78 town squares in Puerto Rico and the diaspora on the 29th of each month protesting for the liberation of Oscar López Rivera, and for the decolonization of Puerto Rico. Click on the following link to watch a video by the inventor of this campaign, Edwin Chungo Molina, about it: https://youtu.be/Azp6EV6b2L0
United Partners for Puerto Rico Decolonization will be at the Bayamón Town Square from 2 to 4 PM. We invite everyone to join us with your shirts, flags, signs and flyers to inform the public about, who is Oscar and why he is in prison for the last 34 years?
It is important that the public understands that our Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera has the international right to do whatever is necessary to decolonize his homeland. It is the United States government that is committing a crime by maintaining Puerto Rico as its colony for the last 117 years!
We invite you also to 3 more peaceful protests that are scheduled permanently throughout the year.
• On the Abolition of Slavery Day, Tuesday, March 22, 2016, from 6 to 8, we will have our 3rd Oscar – Mandela March in Puerto Rico 2016. We will march from the Capitol to the United States Court House in Old San Juan.

• On the day before the United Nations (UN) hearing on Puerto Rico decolonization, we will have the 3rd Puerto Rico Independence March 2016. This march is organized by the Independence Dialogue Table, and we will march over the 2 Hermanos Bridge going into the Condado. We will give more information as soon as it is available.

• On the very day of the UN hearing about Puerto Rico decolonization, usually on the Monday after Fathers’ Day, we will have our 3rd Oscar – Mandela March in New York City 2016. We will march at 9 AM from Hunter College to the UN. We will stay in front of the UN all day to inform the public about Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the United States.
These annual permanent protests are necessary, because those who have Oscar in jail for his struggle to decolonize his homeland don’t believe in JUSTICE FOR ALL! http://www.TodosUnidosDescolonizarPR.blogspot.com

Tell our puerto ricans not to give up because of a debt that has been put on them that is not even theirs . Instead raise your heads high and do what our people have always done best work your lands cultivate help each other. That is the one thing that we as a race have we dont help each other if we can overcome this flaw we will be unstoppable. The rich in the U.S want you to give up because our people have gotten used to the charity handout and in turn have put our people to sleep . Wake up they want your island where they can sit in the sun and beutiful beaches while you come here to suffer racism and cold . If they get it you wont be able to afford land or home on your own island . Please dont give it away.

American born never knew what my people went through . No wonder my father would get angry at people who wore the flag around their shoulders. He would say if your gonna carry my flag put it on the tallest stick you can find raise it and wave it so that star could shine . I understand now. Que viva mi gente!!!!!!

Nelson-regarding your wish that Obama would read your book, I second your motion. However, Obama is another imperial president with just a tad of some additional cosmetic touches, let me explain. During his trip to Chile when Pinera was President a few years ago, when he was confronted with the first press conference question from a Chilean journalist regarding the 1973 CIA coup against Allende, you could tell from Obama’s facial gestures that he was going through sheer hell in trying to get his words out. In short, Obama searched for a diplomatic answer it seemed, but in the end he gave himself out when he used words to the effect that,…..”we should never be trapped by our history.” I analyzed the you tube of that press conference and Obama’s words regarding the 1973 coup, and concluded that he was literally spitting upon the sacred altar of the historic memory of our Latin American nations with his ill disguised expression. Also, I read not too long ago, that Obama said that he wasn’t concerned with the history which happened prior to his birth, or words to that effect. Let us not forget his famous encounter with Chavez years ago, when Chavez gave him an edition of “The Open Veins of Latin America” by Galeano. Is there evidence anywhere that Obama so much as even “browsed” that virtual bible of the historic memory of our Latin American nations? Obama has publicly stated that his favorite American theologian is Richard Niehbuhr. Through sheer luck I had bought one of Niehbuhr’s books, from a friend that sells used books. I was almost shocked to browse through a section of Niehbuhr’s book, to find out that Niehbuhr was a virtual racist, in the kind of language he referred to the Asian peoples, describing them as somewhat inferior to Europeans. Again, I second your motion that imperial president Obama would read your fine book. But with the evidence I’ve seen of this president’s concept of history, it would virtually take a miracle of God, for him to lay his eyes upon it.

Greetings! I bought Nelson A. Denis’s book at La Tertulia’s bookstore in Old San Juan, along with Ignacio Ramonet’s book “Hugo Chavez Mi Primera Vida”, during my recent trip to Puerto Rico, which was due to my mother’s funeral and burial. If I may be allowed, I would like to give a testimony-I moved permanently from Puerto Rico to Dominican Republic at the end of 2009, & lived there for almost five years straight. As other things in my life, I would say that this was a “providential” experience. Being curious as I am, I almost immediately started watching the main Dominican TV networks & was amazed to see the quality of TV journalism in D. R. Additionally, I felt like I was in heaven when to my surprise I had access to Cubavision Internacional & Telesur, in my cable system. Along with this, I made friends with a street side book vendor in Santiago, from whom I was able to eventually buy a nice collection of books, especially books on history of Dominican Republic & related subjects about Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc.

Almost immediately after being exposed to these various alternative sources as I would call them, I felt that I was undergoing a sort of mystical experience, which I could best describe as a process of “neuron decompression”. In other words, I felt like my mind was freeing itself from the bombarded way of thinking, that one is exposed from cradle to grave while living in what I call tongue in cheek, the “Imperial Satrapy of Macondo”. Eventually I have returned to the #empireindecline somewhat grudgingly, due to my wife acquiring her U. S. residence.

Since #cyberactivism has become a sort of hobby of mine, & I’m very active online, plus I have no TV or radio, my primary source of information has become the Internet. I don’t know if I would recommend this same kind of lifestyle, but to me it has been rather fun for me.

Due to my recent life experiences, I have concluded that it is well nigh impossible, to expect people that have lived under a psycho-social environment, such as that which is fostered in Puerto Rico, to be able to see things the same way as someone who has not undergone that Orwellian experience. This, alongside with what I loosely describe as the “functional illiteracy of historic memory”, I have reasonably concluded that this could be part of the reason why many of us Puerto Ricans think the way they do, concerning our so-called relationship with the Colossus of the North. Christ himself said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. Without a truly free mind, it is impossible to think freely.

Even then, I confess of still having many gaps particularly of historic memory of the Puerto Rican nation, but again, along with the Internet & some of the books I have acquired, I have tried along the way to fill those gaps here & here, notwithstanding being the confessed undisciplined reader that I am. My “decompressed brain”, I also believe has helped me to see things entirely different, regarding the current historical juncture that the Puerto Rican nation finds itself in.

Greetings once again, & cordial salutations to my Puerto Rican brothers and sisters, from an “undisclosed location” in an #empireindecline.

US denounces human rights violations only when you disobey
The United States (US) government’s goal is global dominance. Noam Chomsky brilliantly explains this in his book, HEGMONY OR SURVIVAL.
The US must control countries to do this. It must rob them of their resources. A leader who is willing to do what the US government wants, will not only get its support, but it will also never accuse him of any crimes against citizens of his country. As long as US corporations can get huge profits out of that country, American democracy could not be working better!
But, as soon as the leader disobeys, Washington will quickly accuse him of horrible human rights violations and of being a dictator. The US government will quickly replace him with someone who will cooperate with Washington.
This is why President Eisenhower didn’t meet with Fidel Castro after his revolution ousted Cuban dictator and US puppet Batista. US said nothing about Batista’s atrocities against the Cubans. But, as soon as Fidel Castro became the leader that the Cuban People wanted, the US suddenly got very interested in the Cuban People’s human rights, liberties, democracy, and justice for all!
Within 2 months, the US government started planning on how to remove Fidel Castro for somebody it could control. Chomsky’s book goes into the details of that. And after more than 50 years, the US government is still trying to get Cuba under its control again.
Recently, the United Nations (UN) voted once again to lift the US blockade against Cuba. This time, only the United States and Israel want to continue to punish Cuba for not wanting to be controlled by the US government. How more obvious could it be that the US government is still determined to change Cuba’s government to one that will serve US interest!
This is why Puerto Rico decolonization will never happen under US control. Puerto Rico is a colony, because the US government wants it that way. How could anyone realistically believe that the US would reverse something that it unilaterally installed?
To decolonize Puerto Rico, we would have to protest peacefully and permanently for a long time (remember the Cuban blockade) for the US government to respect our inalienable right to self-determination and independence under international law. We must protest tirelessly to insist that the US government comply with the 34 UN resolutions to immediately decolonize Puerto Rico.
And when that day happens that we are finally for the very first time decolonized, Washington will be going all out to install a Puerto Rican president who will do exactly whatever the US government wants. If you doubt that, why do you think the US still has a naval station in Cuba?http://www.TodosUnidosDescolonizarPR.com

Linde Barrera
October 31, 2015
What can freedom loving Americans do to help Puerto Rico stay “Puerto Rican”? What can American voters who value truth, fairness and justice do to help Puerto Rico stay “Puerto Rican”?

Linde: F YOU HAVE AT ALL BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR THE LAST 25 YRS, THE U.S. VOTERS HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING TO GET TRUTH, FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE RIGHT HERE ON THE MAINLAND FROM OUR OWN GOVERNMENT AND AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS. AND, THAT CHASM IS JUST GETTING WORSE. YOU ALSO HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, THAT ( AND IT’S PROBABLY SAFE TO SAY ) THAT MORE THAN 95% OF THE U.S. POPULATION HAS NO CLUE ABOUT PR IN ANY RESPECT. MEANING THEY DON’T CARE. OUR OWN GOVT HAS BEEN LARGELY RESPONSIBLE IN PROPAGATING THAT IGNORANCE FOR MANY DECADES NOW. UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S TOO LATE FOR YOUR PLEAS. PLEAS THAT CURRENTLY WOULD NEVER MAKE IT ON THE AVERAGE U,S, CITIZENS’ RADAR; AS MOST ARE LIVING PAYCHECK/PAYCHECK. THIS ISSUE HAS GOTTEN TO THE POINT WHERE REALLY, THE ONLY SOLUTION AND ANSWER RESTS W/THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLAND. MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE, THEY WERE AWARE OF THESE PROBLEMS, BUT DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO EFFECTIVELY CHANGE THINGS. THE ISLANDERS ARE TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MANAGING THEIR OWN DESTINY. YOUR PROPOSITION IS EXTREMELY NAIVE.

Organ Gangs Force Poor to Sell Kidneys for Desperate Israelis
by Michael Smith, Daryna Krasnolutska and David Glovin for Bloomberg news
Aliaksei Yafimau shudders at the memory of the burly thug who threatened to kill his relatives. Yafimau, who installs satellite television systems in Babrujsk, Belarus, answered an advertisement in 2010 offering easy money to anyone willing to sell a kidney.
He saw it as a step toward getting out of poverty. Instead, Yafimau, 30, was thrust into a dark journey around the globe that had him, at one point, locked in a hotel room for a month in Quito, Ecuador, waiting for surgeons to cut out an organ, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its December issue.
The man holding Yafimau against his will was Roini Shimshilashvili, a former kickboxer who was an enforcer for an international organ-trafficking ring, according to evidence gathered by police in Kiev. Yafimau says that when he pleaded with Shimshilashvili to let him get out of the deal and go home, the big man sliced the air with Thai-boxing moves and threatened him.
“He said if I didn’t go through with it, he would leave me in Ecuador and kill my family,” Yafimau says.
Doctors removed Yafimau’s left kidney in July 2010 and transplanted it into an Israeli woman, according to the Kiev police investigation. On the plane back to Belarus, on the western border of Russia, Shimshilashvili told Yafimau that if he wanted to live, he shouldn’t talk to police.
“I am afraid for my life,” says Yafimau, standing outside his mother’s Babrujsk apartment building, a nine-story, Soviet-era edifice that’s surrounded by weeds and trash. The traffickers paid Yafimau $10,000. He says it wasn’t worth the fear that haunts him today.
Violence and Coercion
Yafimau is one of the faceless and neglected victims in a sprawling global black market in organs — where brokers use deception, violence and coercion to buy kidneys from impoverished people, mainly in underdeveloped countries, and then sell them to critically ill patients in more-affluent nations.
The middlemen form alliances with doctors in leading hospitals who do these transplants for a fee, no questions asked.
Organ trafficking is on the rise, as desperate people seek transplants in a world that doesn’t have enough donors. About 5,000 people sell organs on the black market each year, according to Francis Delmonico, an adviser on transplants to the World Health Organization.
It’s against the law to buy or sell an organ in every country except Iran, says Delmonico, who is president-elect of the Montreal-based Transplantation Society, which lobbies governments to crack down on illicit procedures.
‘Exploit Shortages’
“There have been successes fighting organ trafficking around the world,” Delmonico says. “But organ trafficking continues to flourish because criminals exploit shortages of organ donors.”
Bloomberg Markets reported in June that U.S. citizens and others from the Americas suffering from kidney failure were going to Nicaragua and Peru to buy organs in a shadowy trade that injured and killed donors and recipients.
That U.S.-Latin American connection is dwarfed by a network of organ-trafficking organizations whose reach extends from former Soviet Republics such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Moldova to Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa and beyond, a Bloomberg Markets investigation shows.
Many of the black-market kidneys harvested by these gangs are destined for people who live in Israel.
Not Enough Donors
With a generally well-educated population of 7.4 million and a modern medical system, Israel has an acute shortage of organs, in part because of religious beliefs. Just 12 percent of Israelis are registered donors, meaning they have consented to let their organs be used for transplants after they die, according to the Israeli National Transplant Center.
That compares with 40 percent of Americans. About 730 Israelis are currently waiting for a transplant, which is 13 times more than the number of such surgeries performed legally in Israel in 2010, according to the center.
Delmonico, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, has spent the past six years lobbying governments and doctors around the world to combat organ trafficking. He says Israel’s government is cracking down.
The Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, passed the Organ Transplant Law in 2008, setting penalties, including imprisonment of up to three years, for buying and selling organs and requiring hospitals to scrutinize transplants by nonrelatives and foreigners.
Breaking up Gangs
In an effort to draw more legal organ donors, the law also offers volunteers compensation for lost wages and travel expense and provides them with additional health insurance. Israeli police have been among the most aggressive in the world against organ traffickers, breaking up three international gangs since 2008.
The government has also banned insurers from funding most transplants outside Israel.
The dearth of available organs in Israel has spawned a new class of criminals, mainly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, says Jerusalem Police Superintendent Gilad Bahat.
Investigators on five continents say they have uncovered intertwining criminal rings run by Israelis and eastern Europeans that move people across borders — sometimes against their will — to sell a kidney.
“The criminal here is the middleman who profits from the sick and the poor,” says Bahat, who investigated an organ-trafficking ring in Jerusalem. “It touches my heart that people will sell part of their body because they need money to live.”
‘Obscene Profit’
Criminals see an opportunity to make big money in the organ trade, where they can sell a kidney for 15 to 20 times what they pay, police throughout Europe say.
“They recognize the obscene profit that can be made in the expanding black market in body parts,” says Jonathan Ratel, a Pristina, Kosovo-based prosecutor who has been investigating organ trafficking over the past two years. “It keeps happening because there is so much money in this.”
Traffickers typically pay $10,000 to a seller for a kidney and collect $150,000 when selling it to a patient.
Traffickers prey on the most-vulnerable people. Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, is one of their prime hunting grounds.
Dorin Razlog, a shepherd with an eighth-grade education who lives in Ghincauti, says recruiters for a trafficking ring told him cash for a kidney would lift him out of poverty. After doctors in Istanbul cut out the organ in August 2002, they paid him $7,000 — $3,000 less than they’d offered. Of that, $2,500 was in counterfeit bills, he says.
Writhing From Pain
“They told me they would send people to destroy my house and kill my family if I went to the police,” Razlog, 30, says. Today, the money is long gone, and he sleeps on a musty mattress inside the rusting hulk of an abandoned Russian van next to a pigsty. At the end of some days, Razlog says, he’s writhing from pain in his remaining kidney.
“The only way out is death,” he says.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry broke up the ring that bought Razlog’s kidney and arrested its leader — a Ukrainian-born Israeli national — in 2007.
In Mingir, Moldova, the organ black market cost a man his life. Vasile Diminetz, a frail retired farmer, says his son Vladimir grew ill after a broker bought his kidney in Turkey for $2,000 in 1999.
Haunted by Memories
Vladimir died in 2003 at the age of 25, after his remaining kidney failed, according to the Renal Foundation of Moldova, which has documented dozens of cases of organ trafficking.
Vasile, 70, stands outside the stone cottage where he lives alone, haunted by the memories.
“If I only knew, I could have saved my boy,” he says. “Maybe I could have done more, and I will regret that until I die.”
Prosecutors in nine countries have been conducting criminal probes of organ trafficking involving Israeli patients since 2003. The largest case dates to that year, when the Brazilian Federal Police noticed people from two slums of Recife, a coastal city 2,110 kilometers (1,311 miles) from Sao Paulo, flying to Durban, South Africa.
They returned home in so much pain from incisions across their abdomens that they needed assistance to get off the plane, says Karla Gomes de Matos Maia, the investigator who led the probe.
‘Suspect Organ Trafficking’
“Here you had people who didn’t fit the profile of tourists going to a strange destination and coming back after having major surgery,” Maia says. “We began to suspect organ trafficking.”
The Brazilian case is still wending its way through international courts. In November 2010 in Durban, Netcare Ltd. — South Africa’s largest hospital company — pleaded guilty to violating the Human Tissue Act, which prohibits buying and selling organs.
Netcare paid 7.8 million rand ($848,464) in fines and penalties. It admitted to allowing 92 transplants in which donors from Brazil, Israel and Romania sold kidneys to Israeli patients. Four doctors are awaiting trial on trafficking charges.
In Brazil, 12 people connected to the Netcare case were convicted and jailed, with sentences from 15 months to 11 years.
In Kosovo, Ratel, who has dual citizenship in Canada and Great Britain and was appointed by the European Union to help restore the country’s criminal justice system, is overseeing a pivotal organ-trafficking case. It includes participants and victims from Belarus, Moldova, Turkey and four other countries.
Center for Trafficking
The EU has administered the courts in Kosovo since 2008, the year the country the size of Connecticut declared independence from Serbia after a civil war. Ratel, who arrived in March 2010 as part of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, says the country has become a center for organ trafficking.
Ratel built a case against nine doctors, hospital administrators and recruiters on charges of buying and selling kidneys for patients in Georgia, Germany, Israel, Poland and Ukraine, as well as Canada and the United States.
The trial began in October and is expected to continue into 2012. He has sought assistance from investigators in 11 countries in the case.
Ratel says he’s stunned by the callousness of the criminals who run the organ rings. Traffickers in Kosovo threatened one kidney seller with death if he testified in court, so the court had the man placed into a witness protection program.
‘Threats of Violence’
“This is organized crime,” Ratel says. “There is significant coercion and threats of violence.”
Organ traffickers search the world for hospitals willing to perform illicit transplants. Sometimes, sellers are flown to cities just to wait for procedures, and then traffickers move them to other parts of the globe when they find a recipient and a hospital willing to cooperate.
While the illegal organ trade may be run by seasoned criminals, it depends on the complicity of doctors and hospitals, says Oleg Liashko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament.
“I doubt this could happen without the hospital and doctors knowing about it,” says Liashko, who has investigated organ trafficking and is calling for more-severe criminal penalties in organ transplant laws. “They either know or look the other way because of the money involved. This is corruption, pure and simple.”
Doctors must be held criminally accountable when they perform surgery with an organ that’s been sold, Ratel says.
‘Willful Blindness’
“Ignorance is not a defense,” he says. “That is willful blindness. A doctor involved should know all the relevant facts, including whether the donor is a blood relative or not.”
People have two kidneys that filter toxins out of the bloodstream. A patient with failure in both kidneys will die quickly unless he or she is hooked up to a dialysis machine or gets a transplant.
Transplants prolong lives, and patients who receive organs from living donors have better survival rates than those who receive organs from deceased donors.
Of patients who get organs from a living donor, 90 percent survive at least five years; for those receiving an organ from a dead donor, the figure is 82 percent, according to the Washington-based Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
WATCH OUT PUERTO RICO

I just listened to ( NYDN ) Juan Gonzalez’s talk re: PR’s Debt Crisis at the King Juan Carlos Ctr., and his suggestions on what can be done about it. I highly regard Juan ( been following him and his works for two decades now ). His talk tonight in NY was very informative and motivating. However, I was very surprised by Juan’s suggestion that a solution to PR’s economic crisis was an enhancement of the current colonial relationship and not statehood nor independence. I guess the take home message is that the islanders ultimately have no confidence/say in their destiny in any way: Don’t even try. My message to Juan is this: If two or more people are playing a game, and one of the players isn’t playing by the same rules as the other’s ( in this case, more ADVANTAGEOUS rules apply to that aberrant player ), then guess what? The other players are going to lose every time. Juan: One’s dignity isn’t worth the trade-off of a “coveted” U.S. citizenship status, as you put it. But, if it’s your take that most of the islanders feel this way, ( that the aforementioned trade-off is a good deal ) then they will obviously need to prepare themselves for even more punishment. ( And, they will have it coming, for “still not getting it.” ) What else could possibly come of it? One can dress up a Yorkshire terrier to the nine’s; attempting to make the animal look as human as possible. But, it’s still the dog underneath it all. It doesn’t look like statehood is in the cards anytime soon. So what’s left is independence. And, if independence is achieved by the mainland letting the “island go” as a result of the debt crisis…., it should be welcomed as a blessing as the beginning of true freedom, in well over 500 yrs. A new kind of PR will be born if and when that time comes. A kind of PR that will need to learn to take control of his destiny and what he makes of himself with no one holding him back, but himself.

Could anyone recommend a detailed-self-guided tour of those places in Puerto Rico related to Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos (i.e., his home, place where the Ponce massacre took place, etc.? I would like to take my family, during our upcoming visit in December 2015.

Making “Spanish” the official language of the island will have a negligible to no effect on the “status” question as it relates PR becoming a state or not. For the last 117 yrs the islanders have pushed for independence or statehood. They have been snubbed by D.C. every time. Even when the islanders prevailed with a recent plebescite. And, now in 2015 “the spanish language” concern’s going to potentially turn the tide?? According to this blogger.

The islander’s wishes have been largely ignored by D.C. re: the bottom-line issues. How much more of a clue-in does one need? How many more times do the islander PR’s care to be insulted by such indignities? ( Usually, most folks “get it” by connecting the dots. It doesn’t take more than 2 or 3 dots to draw the line through it to see where it’s headed. Once that’s determined, one makes a choice. And, takes the appropriate action ) Apparently, forever ( a seemingly infinite number of DOTS! ) They’re gluttons’ for punishment/suffering.

When you have landlord ( and ALL islanders are tenants..Worse: They are “allowed” to exist on the island at the pleasure of D.C…. ); who do you think is going to prevail when the tenant is requesting the landlord to make a home-improvement such as adding another bedroom or changing the entire facade of the home; all while keeping the rent the same? Has it ever happened here in the U.S,, domestically, between a first class citizen landlord/tenant? Do you think this is ever going to happen under the current relationship between second class citizen islanders and the first class citizen D.C. “elites?” What do you think the average tenant is going to do in a relatively short period of time if their wishes are not met?

It simply amazes me how many islander ( and seemingly some non-islander PR’s..) PR’s “miss the boat” on the critical political questions…just to wax political. Just to sit around and talk politics. Maybe the #1 pastime of PR’s ( talking politics ); evolved over time because an increasing number of the them had so much TIME on their hands to do so ( many of those 100% dependent of the colonialist’s teat via welfare/food stamps after being forced away from dignified work ). The point is, is where has all this “talk” gotten the islander PR’s over time? Absolutely, nowhere. It’s all been in vain. It’s all b.s. talk. Time that could have been and needs to be utilized much more intelligently/productively.

The Power of Three Words: The Miami New Times JULY 30, 2015, Quietly Insults Every Puerto Rican ( Revisited..Two months later )

NELSON, I’M POSTING THIS ON THE HOME PAGE BECAUSE MAYBE IT WILL GET POSTED THERE. THE ORIGINAL BLOG WAS IN RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN A FLORIDA NEWSPAPER ABOUT TWO MONTHS EARLIER. I RESPONDED TO THIS BLOGGERS POST, BUT IT WAS NEVER POSTED ( THE BLOGGER SECTION ). I’VE WAITED LONG ENOUGH. SO, A CONDENSED VERSION OF THE RESPONSE IS REPEATED IN THIS FORUM, HOPING IT WILL GET POSTED. I UNDERSTAND THE NEED TO EDITORIALIZE UNDER EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES. BUT, WHEN A MEMBER OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC CHIMES IN AND PUTS THE TIME AN EFFORT INTO A RESPONSE THAT A BLOGGER MAY NOT LIKE ( SUCH AS DISAGREEING WITH THEM AND OPINIONATES WHAT THEY REPRESENT TO THE RESPONDER ); NOT TO PUBLISH ANY OF IT SHOULDN’T BE AN OPTION. IT KEEPS THE DISCUSSION LOP-SIDED AND NEW IDEAS ARE NOT INTRODUCED FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO READ AND THINK ABOUT THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE TURN-KEY TO HELP THE ISLANDERS AND THE PR DIASPORA SEE THEMSELVES IN NEW LIGHT, IN A HOPEFULLY PRODUCTIVE MANNER.

I’M WONDERING, IF THERE HAS BEEN ANY ANALYSIS OF THE PEOPLE THAT ARE BLOGGERS ON THIS SITE, WHAT THEY’RE SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHICS MIGHT BE. WHAT I MEAN IS, ARE MOST OF THESE ESTABLISHED BLOGGERS RESIDING IN THE U.S. OR DO MOST LIVE ON THE ISLAND? I’VE NOTICED THAT THERE ARE SOME VERY ACTIVE PEOPLE ON THIS SITE, WHOM DO NOT LIVE ON THE ISLAND, AND HAVEN’T FOR A LONG TIME. THEY WRITE IN ENGLISH. ANOTHER COMMON DENOMINATOR IS THAT A GOOD NUMBER OF THEM ARE U.S. FEDERALLY RETIRED. WHICH I FIND, TO PUT IT MILDLY, KIND OF AN OXYMORON BASED ON WHAT’S COMING OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS NOW ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVT. AND THE PR ISLANDERS. I DOUBT IF ANY OF THEM WERE ANYWHERE NEAR AS FORWARD THEN ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS BETWEEN THE U.S./ISLANDER RELATIONSHIP. ARE THERE MANY ISLANDER PR’S THAT ARE CURRENTLY NOT RETIRED, WORKING FOR THE FEDERAL GOVT. OR PR GOVT. THAT ARE BLOGGING ON THIS SITE? OR, ARE THEY TOO SCARED TO DO SO? THAT’S THE KIND OF PERSON THAT WOULD BE MOST RELEVANT. BECAUSE THEY’RE ACTUALLY LIVING IT.

WHAT I’M SAYING IS, IT’S EASY TO BECOME “AN ARMCHAIR PR POLITICAL ENTHUSIAST” WHEN ONE IS NOT LIVING ON THE ISLAND AND IS RETIRED. AND, THEN TRYING TO “CHEERLEAD” A SEEMINGLY INVISIBLE PR ISLANDER AUDIENCE. NO ONE IS GOING TO LISTEN/FOLLOW ANYONE WHOM DOESN’T SHARE THEIR SAME PREDICAMENT. I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THE FBI/NSA/CIA AND ANY OTHER COVERT U.S. AGENCIES ARE FOLLOWING THESE THREADS. COULD THAT BE PART OF THE INHIBITION FOR MONOLINGUAL ISLANDERS TO OPEN UP ON THIS SITE? HAS THERE BEEN ANY ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THOSE ON YOUR STAFF TO GET THEM TO DO SO IN MUCH GREATER NUMBERS?

I HAVE WRITTEN MY RESPONSE TO THIS BLOGGERS RESPONSE TO THE MIAMI ARTICLE IN LARGE LETTERS INTERSPERSED WITH THEIR ORIGINAL RESPONSE, FOR CLARITY.

When Cubans arrived in major numbers to Miami, especially in the early 60s, the Old Guard did not welcome them with open arms. Cubans encountered a great deal of racism, redlining, and rejection. NO DOUBT. AS HAS HAPPENED WITH MANY NEW IMMIGRANTS.

Luckily the US federal government had a vested interest in showcasing their “American Success Story,” so Cubans received many SBA loans and other small business assistance programs, to make sure that this “success story” occurred. AND, IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO. GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, THE CUBANS SEEMED TO HAVE EMBRACED IT AS EVIDENCED BY THEIR ECONOMIC POWER IN COMPARISON TO OTHER LATINO’S WHOM HAD TO MIGRATE TO THE U.S. FOR POLITICAL/ECONOMIC OPPRESSIVE REASONS.

But as human beings, every Cuban remembered the sting of raised eyebrows and whispered comments, whenever they entered a room of “established” Americans. THE INTERESTING PART OF THIS COMMENT IS, IS THAT IT SEEMS THAT MANY “GOT OVER IT” AND FOCUSED ON SUCCESS. LOOK AT WHERE THE CUBANS ARE NOW IN COMPARISON. AND, THEY’VE BEEN HERE FOR A MUCH SHORTER PERIOD OF TIME THAN THE PR’S.

For that reason, the Miami New Times should be more sensitive to Puerto Ricans in Florida. I HAVE TO ASK, WHY? I’M A PR, ( AND RAISED ON THE ISALND ) AND DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHY THE CUBANS SHOULD BE MORE SENSITIVE TO THE PR’S OR ANYONE ELSE WHEN IT COMES TELLING THE ( THEIR ) TRUTH ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE SEEING FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE ISSUE MIGHT BE. IS THE AUTHOR A CUBAN?

In a recent article titled “Puerto Rico is Broke: What You Need to Know About Looming Bankruptcy,” the Miami New Times got a few facts wrong. It claimed that Puerto Rico owes $79 billion (not $73 billion) and that “millions” of Puerto Ricans are living in Florida. WHERE’S THE RELEVANCY TO ANY OF IT? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN $73 AND $79 BILLION TO THE AVERAGE PR? OR REALLY, TO ANYONE? THOSE TWO NUMBERS MEAN THE SAME THING: THE PR ECONOMY’S IN TROUBLE. THERE ARE MILLIONS OF PR’S LIVING IN FLORIDA. OK?!? BLAH, BLAH, BLAH ,BLAH….BLAAAAH.

But they did something worse. AND, WHAT MAY THAT HAVE BEEN, PRAY TELL?? The entire article dealt with the devastating problems in Puerto Rico: a sinking economy, soaring crime rate, massive outmigration, inept government. IT’S ALL TRUE. OK. SO WHAT’S THE POINT? Then after reciting all these grave issues, the article ended with this:

How are Puerto Ricans dealing with all of this? About as you’d expect:
“This is fine.” WHOM EVER WROTE THIS BLOG, I THINK MISSED THE POINT ENTIRELY. CONSCIOUSLY? SUBCONSCIOUSLY? WHO KNOWS. BUT, THE BLOGGER FAILED TO CONSIDER EVERYTHING THAT THE STAFF WRITER OF THE MIAMI PAPER WAS LIKELY LEADING UP TO. AND, PUTTING UP AN APPROPRIATE HISTORICAL CONTEXT. TO THE BLOGGER, OR ANYONE ELSE WHOM DIDN’T SEE THE SATIRE ( THAT’S WHAT CARTOON’S PURPOSES ARE A FUNCTION OF… ONCE IN A WHILE.. CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW ). TO ME, IT WAS VERY CLEAR WHAT THE CARTOON REPRESENTED. IT REPRESENTED THE PUERTO RICAN ( ISLANDER ) POPULACE’S HISTORICAL HUMAN IMPOTENCE SINCE THE U.S. TAKEOVER IN 1898. THE ISLANDER’S HISTORICAL AND PERSISTENT WILLINGNESS TO BE ABUSED SO BADLY, IN EVERY WAY CONCEIVABLE, WHEREBY THEY BECAME SO PERFECTLY “CONDITIONED” TO THIS NOT ONLY ONGOING; BUT, INCREASING LEVELS OF ABUSE,THAT IT’S GOTTEN TO THE POINT, WITHIN THE AVERAGE ( PR’S ) INDIVIDUAL’S CONSTITUTION, THAT EVEN IF THE PLACE IS BURNING DOWN AROUND THEM, AS DEPICTED IN THE CARTOON ( NOW THEY’RE IN A DIRECT PHYSICAL THREAT OF LOSING THEIR VERY LIVES…FORGET ABOUT ALL OF THE MENTAL, ECONOMIC, CULTURAL, AND OTHER TYPES OF ONGOING ABUSES ); IT’S NOT A PROBLEM!: “THAT’S FINE.” “THAT’S FINE”=”THE CROWNING COLONIAL ACHIEVEMENT.” THE NUMBING OF THE ISLANDER’S LOVE OF SELF…AND, SUBSEQUENT PROMULGATION OF A SELF-LOATHING. ( THE CONDITION SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS A DSMV SICKNESS/DISEASE THAT DEVELOPS AS A RESULT OF LONG-TERM COLONIALISM. REALLY. ). IT WAS REAL EASY FOR ME TO SEE THAT. IT’S PROBABLY EVIDENT TO OTHER’S. THE BIG PROBLEM: IS THE CHRONIC IGNORING OF THE TRUTH BY SO MANY PR’S. ( BECAUSE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED. ) THE TRUTH, THAT ISLANDER’S DIGNITY IS REALLY NON-EXISTENT. IF THE AUTHOR OF THE JUNE 30, 2015 ARTICLE/CARTOON WAS A CUBAN ( OR WHATEVER.. ), HE WAS DOING THE PR’S A HUGE FAVOR, BY SHOVING THE NOTION DOWN THEIR THROATS. BUT, EVEN THAT DIDN’T WORK IN THIS BLOGGERS’ MIND; OR FOR MANY OF US WHOM CHOOSE TO REMAIN HYPEROPTIC. IT SEEMS THE BLOGGER KNEE-JERKED IT AND TOOK ONLY ONE POSTURE, AND IT WAS DEFENSIVE ONE. AND, ONE THAT DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING. WHAT IT DOES, IT KEEPS THINGS RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE. MUCH TO THE DELIGHT OF THOSE IN CONTROL IN D.C. AND ELSEWHERE. IT’S AMAZING HOW PEOPLE STILL CAN’T AND; MOREOVER, REFUSE TO SEE THIS.

A word to the Miami New Times: this is not fine. OF COURSE IT’S NOT FINE. BUT, THE BLOGGER CONTINUES TO MISS THE POINT. AND THE LIKELY INTERPRETATION THE CARTOON WAS ATTEMPTING TO CONVEY.

Puerto Ricans do not enjoy getting kicked in the head, and taxed to death, I THOUGHT EVERYONE LIKED THAT SORT OF THING; I MEAN, THOSE SIN DIGNIDAD… ( THAT’S CALLED: SARCASM.. ) and forced off their own ( CORRECTION: THE PR’S DO NOT OWN THEIR ISLAND. THEY LIVE ON A PIECE OF REAL ESTATE THAT IS OWNED BY D.C. AND LEASED TO THE PR PEOPLE. IT’S BEEN THAT WAY SINCE 1898. THE ROCK JUST HAPPENS TO BE CALLED: PUERTO RICO. CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT EITHER. AND, THIS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE AS TO WHY THINGS HAVE BEEN THE WAY THEY HAVE. THINK ABOUT IT. ) island. AND, WHO HELL DOES? WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION AGAIN: WHY DO THEY PUT UP WITH IT, FOR SO LONG? RE-READ THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH FOR THE ANSWER. KEEP DOING IT UNTIL YOU GET THE ANSWER…

They do not enjoy migrating across the sea, and trying to start a new life, with anxiety and uncertainty defining their entire existence…only to have you say…WELL, I SAY TO THIS BLOGGER: THOSE THAT MIGRATE ACROSS THE SEA TO START A NEW LIFE DO SO BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE RESOURCES TO DO SO; HAVE TRIED TO CHANGE THINGS BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL AND FOUND THE WILL/COURAGE AND THE RESOURCES TO LEAVE. THOSE THAT HAVE STAYED, STAY FOR VARIOUS REASONS AS WELL. BUT, FOR THOSE WHOM STAY AND REPRESENT THE CHARACTER DEPICTED IN THE CARTOON ( WHICH IS THE VAST MAJORITY ), AND ALSO CHOOSE TO ENDURE THAT ( CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS ) KIND OF EXISTENCE…IT’S ALL ON THEM. THEY HAVE NO COMPLAINT COMING AT THIS POINT IN HISTORY. AND THIS BLOGGER SHOULDN’T BE COMPLAINING, EITHER.
“This is fine.”

What is happening to Puerto Ricans is not fine.
It is not a Twitter joke, or a Miami New Times cartoon.
It is real life…in many cases a desperate life…and you have no right to trivialize or defame it. THERE IS ONLY DEFAMATION IN THE INDIVIDUALS’ MIND, IF THEY CHOSE TO SEE THE CARTOON IN NEGATIVE LIGHT, OR INSTEAD, TO VIEW IT AS AN OUTSIDER’S VIEW REPRESENTING WHAT WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD IS SO OBVIOUSLY SEEING ( LIKE I DID ). DENIAL IS A POWERFUL FORCE. IT WORKS ESPECIALLY WELL AS A COP -OUT WHEN PEOPLE LACK THE COURAGE TO TACKLE A PROBLEM HEAD ON… AND, THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PROBLEM, SINCE 1898. IT IS THE PROBLEM.

As someone who was brainwashed by family, government and schools, to think that life as a U.S. Citizen living in Puerto Rico was the best that anyone could wish for, I now declare myself “INDEPENDENT”. Your book has just opened my eyes to the Puerto Rican reality. It is so sad.

Question: How is possible that the U.S. was able to getaway with Invading a Solvent Nation; Acting agents all that it stands for ? !!!!!!!

Spain grants Puerto Rico a Carta de Autonomía (Charter of Autonomy) which, after four hundred years, would give Puerto Rico its independence. (?)
( General elections are held in March 1898 and the first “autonomous”government of Puerto Rico begins to function on July 17, 1898. )(?)
Just eight days later, on July 25, Nelson A. Miles (the Commanding General of the U.S. Army) invades Puerto Rico with 16,000 soldiers as part of the Spanish-American War. (?)

Hello Mr. Denis! I have just started reading this book. I have been looking forward to devour every word.I purchased four copies of it, one for myself and the others as gifts. I an currently on track to hopefully become a History Professor. My ethnic background is Chinese (father) and Puerto Rican mother. I have every expectation that your book will change my life much as Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking did.

That being said; I want to address something I found in your book. This is obviously an oversight by your editors. It refers to the unluckiest man in Puerto Rico. On page 43 (Hardcover ed.) Juan Munoz Jimenez was shot while purchasing a lottery ticket during the Ponce Massacre.
On page 66 (Hardcover ed.), Juan Munoz Jimenez was shot while purchasing a lottery ticket during the Rio Piedras Massacre.

I wish you great success with this book. I remember you fondly from your days working in East Harlem.

Nelson Denis, we would like to explore a a visit in California, I am using your book in a course and would like to explore doing a book talk, other universities have expressed interest. Victor M. Rodriguez Professor Cal State University Long Beach

Being born and raised in the US, my mother being Americanized to survive, I was never taught the language very well (spanglish speaker here) nor the history much at all. To be quite honest, I’m very Americanized and always struggled with self identification because of it. After moving from a very highly culturally diverse area into a small town surrounded by mainly people of no color and just in general who’ve never met a PR, tasted food and etc, was very strange to me, I quickly realized and came to terms that I don’t know the history of my people as much as I should, how am I supposed to educate anybody on PR , my culture, our delicacies, our wars, if I’m not informed myself? That being said, I’m a selective reader, this was the first book I chose to inform myself with and after the first few pages, I was hooked, I now find myself looking for more good informational reads, enrolling in groups, classes, etc anything I can find with relation to P.R. and I believe I’ll read this book more than once. I thank you tremendously for this well written and very factual, informal book, as it opened doors for me and is steering me away from the ignorance that was instilled in me of our island, growing up in this country. I can not thank you enough for this amazing read!!!

I sat down and read this book after work, in two days. This is required reading for everyone, it’s instructive for organizers and the rank and file alike. This book doesn’t neglect a structural analysis of racism (land, power, control, profits), instead it is the foundation that good story telling rests upon, to make the subject matter accessible to all readers. It’s a sobering balm of truth to today’s consumerism that grips too many of us. It reinforces that love is sacrifice. Once this book trains a reader how to think, it becomes impossible to look at yourself or the world around you the same. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

You display emotions when you capitalize every word. DANIEL. WE ARE OBVIOUSLY OPERATING ON DIFFERENT PLAINS..OOPS. I MISPELET IT. I CAPITALIZED TO DISTINGUISH MY INTERSPERSED COMMENTS WITHIN YOUR RESPONSE. APPARENTLY, YOU AND PERHAPS OTHERS DID NOT SEE THROUGH THAT. I still don’t know what you stand for: ELA? Republic? State? I STAND FOR WHATEVER THE ISLANDERS WANT SO LONG AS IT RESTORES THEIR SENSE OF DIGNITY, SELF-RESPECT AND ECONOMIC WELL BEING. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN UNDER COLONIAL STATUS AS IT HAS BEEN. IT SEEMS AS IF YOU SPEAK FOR THE ISLANDERS AS IT RELATES ( NOT ) FIGHTING. FIGHTING TO REGAIN WHAT QUALITIES WERE LOST AT THE TAKE-OVER. IF THAT’S SO, AND YOU’RE RIGHT, THEN THE ISLANDER PR’S ARE A LOST CAUSE. Your rants lack real content. ONCE AGAIN, I THINK YOU MIGHT FIND IT HELPFUL TO OPEN UP A DICTIONARY/THESAURUS BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU’RE A BIT OFF WITH THE MEANING OF SOME WORDS. PERHAPS A LESSER DEVELOPED SENSE OF INSIGHT IS THE PROBLEM… By the way, you misspelled Don Cholito’s monologue title; it’s “Encabulla y Vuelve y Tira.” YES I DID. YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. BUT, THE POINT IS, IS THAT YOU GOT THE MESSAGE AND YOU UNDERSTOOD IT. AT LEAST, I THINK YOU DID. AND, THAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM WITH YOU AND MANY A PR AS IT RELATES TO KEEPING FOCUSED AND ON TASK AS IT RELATES THIS SUBJECT MATTER: IS THE SEEMING IMPULSIVENESS TOWARD DISTRACTION. AWAY FROM THE MEAT & POTATOES, THAT YOU HAD JUST COOKED UP AND SAT DOWN TO EAT. IT IS AN UNCOMFORTABLE SUBJECT. BUT, SO WAS BEING FORCED TO EAT MY PEAS AS A CHILD…

I’VE NOTICED THAT WITH YOUR RESPONSE, YOU SEEK TO DIVERT FROM WHAT YOU WERE ASKING ABOUT, AND THE SUGGESTIONS I HAD MADE TO YOU WITH REGARD TO DOING SOME MORE SCHOLASTIC RESEARCH ON YOUR PART RE: THE STATUS QUESTION. IT’S READILY AVAILABLE NOW. YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T HAVE IN YOU TO DO IT, IN ORDER TO REALLY START ENGAGING IN AN EDUCATED CONVERSATION. I WASN’T IN A RUSH. BUT YOU WERE, IN THE MANNER IN WHICH YOU RESPONDED. WHICH MEANS TO ME THAT YOU ( YOU’RE NOT A SPRING CHICKEN.. ) WILL NEVER REALLY HAVE IT IN YOU TO SERIOUSLY TACKLE THIS ISSUE. WILL YOU?

YOU SHOULD SPEND A LOT MORE TIME DOING YOUR REMEDIAL PR HISTORY INITIALIZATION, BECAUSE YOUR JUMPING OFF POINTS ESP: W/REGARD TO THE REASONS WHY THE CONGRESS WOULD FIND PR AN ATTRACTIVE CHOICE FOR STATEHOOD, WERE SIMPLY POOR FORM/AND WITHOUT BASIS. AND, INFORMING ME THAT PR’S ARE U.S.CITIZENS WAS JUST A DEGRADATION. ( AND, A REVELATION OF THE WAYS YOU REALLY NEED TO GO WITH YOUR RESEARCH… ) THE QUESTION WASN’T EVEN BEGGED. IT WAS THROWN OUT THERE AS IF THERE WAS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT SOMEONE ON WRITING ON THIS FORUM WOULDN’T ALREADY KNOW THAT. BUT YOU WERE NOT SPEAKING TO A GENERAL AUDIENCE. YOU WERE ADDRESSING AN INDIVIDUAL W/NO PRETEXT THAT HE DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW THIS. IT WAS JUST A REALLY BAD ASSUMPTION.

I THINK THE ONLY PART WHERE I DID GET EMOTIONAL IN MY LAST RESPONSE ( AND IT WAS PURPOSEFUL ) WAS AT THE VERY END. TO MAKE A POINT. WHICH YOU DIDN’T GET.

PLEASE RID YOURSELF OF THE DEFENSIVE POSTURING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. DO YOUR RESEARCH, WHICH IS GOING TO TAKE YOU A LOT OF TIME. DON’T EXPECT THIS SITE TO EDUCATE YOU, WITHOUT YOU FIRST DOING YOUR HOMEWORK. YOU’RE GOING TO PISS A LOT OF PEOPLE OFF IF YOU DON’T…BY WASTING THEIR TIME AND TAXING THEIR INTELLIGENCE. AND LASTLY, PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG, BY WRITING BACK TO ME AT A LATER DATE WHEN YOU’VE DONE WHAT’S NEEDED TO BE DONE. Y NO SEAS TAN SANGANO.. I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU DANIEL.

Don’t get too emotional. I’M NOT SURE WHERE YOU FOUND THE “EMOTIONALITY” IN MY RESPONSE TO YOU. IF YOU SAW ANY, THERE WASN’T ANY INTENDED. BUT, THE REAL INTERESTING THING THAT JUST CAME UP IN MY BRAIN, IS THAT PR’S LOVE EMOTIONALITY. NOT THAT EMOTIONALITY IS A BAD THING. BUT, IT COULD BE A GOOD THING GONE BAD… OVEREXTENDED; TO THE POINT OF DISTRACTING AWY FROM THE REALITY OF WHATEVER IT IS. I am use to bad news. GOOD. CAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO GET SOME MORE. PERO, NO TE EMOCIONAS…DANIEL. I want real solutions to the political status of PR. OK. GO FOR IT. THE SKY’S THE LIMIT…WHATCHA GOT?!? I am pro-statehood. OK. THAT’S GOOD. I LIKE IT. I posted why I feel this way in a previous post. You do not say anything in your reply. I THINK I DO. WHAT I THINK YOU HAVEN’T DONE, IS PAID ATTENTION TO THE ROAD SIGNS. YOU MAY WANT TO BACK ON THEY INTERNET AND CATCH UP ON THE LAST OH, 63 YRS OR SO OF THE POLITICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE U.S. AND PR. THEN GET BACK TO ME ON THAT… The path for an independent republic will require the spill of blood. MOST LIKELY. BUT NOT THE KIND OF BLOOD YOU GET BY SMACKING A MOSQUITO THAT’S BEEN ON YOUR FOREHEAD SUCKING YOUR BLOOD UP FOR A GOOD MINUTE… I don’t think Puerto Ricans will go for that. WELL, I GUESS THAT SETTLES THAT… It is easy to describe the symptoms of why the Puerto Rican relationship with the U,S, is not what it should be, but appealing to anti-USA rhetoric, will not advance the cause. GO BACK AND READ YOUR HISTORY, DANIEL. RE-READ MY PREV RESPONSE. THERE IS NO ANTI-U.S. RHETORIC. JUST THE TRUTH OF WHAT’S ALREADY GONE DOWN. PR has a strong case to argue in Congress to become the 51st State of the Union. REALLY?? WHAT EXACTLY WOULD THAT BE? I’M ALLLL EARRRSSS…We are bigger than a hand full of states like Rhode Island or Vermont. SO, BY VIRTUE OF HAVING A BIGGER LAND MASS IS A GOOD ARGUMENT? OK. We are closer to the main land than Alaska and Hawaii. SO, BEING PHYSICALLY CLOSER WILL SWAY THE CONGRESS? YES? We already are U.S. citizens (since 1917, look it up). IF PR’S ON THE ISLAND WERE REALLY 100% TREATED AS U.S. CITIZENS WITH FULL CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS, YOU AND I WOULD NOT BE CHATTING RIGHT NOW, NOW WOULD WE? We need to press for statehood. WHO SAYS THAT STATEHOOD HASN’T BEEN THAT KIND OF A STRUGGLE ALREADY IN PR AND IN THE STATES? DO YOU HAVE EVIDENCE THAT IT HASN’T? It’s the only non-violent path. JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY, ( I’M NOT CONDONING IT ), BUT HOW EXACTLY DID THE U.S. ACHIEVE ITS INDEPENDENCE? What is your solution? MY SOLUTION? WELL, BASED ON WHAT I’VE READ AND EXPERIENCED IT SEEMS TO ME THAT PR MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER PLANS OF BECOMING LESS DEPENDENT ON OUTSIDE FORCES/INFLUENCES BY LOOKING INTERNALLY INTO IT’S OWN PEOPLE AND THEIR POTENTIAL TO DO THINGS ON THEIR OWN. THIS WOULD MEAN ROLLING UP A LOT OF SLEEVES AND WORKING NOT JUST HARD, BUT SMART. ONE CAN START WITH DIVERSIFYING AGRICULTURAL OUT-PUT AND INCREASING ITS DENSITY. SETTING UP GETTING OFF THE GRID ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES: WIND, ( THINK ABOUT THE POWER THAT ONE HURRICANE COULD GENERATE? SUPPLY THE ENTIRE ISLAND FOR 10 YRS, AND SELL THE EXCESS BACK TO THE U.S. IN EXCHANGE FOR A TESLSA ROADSTER IN EVERY PR GARAGE.. SOLAR ( COME ON..FOR DAYS…), WATER ( ALL AROUND IT…WAVE CURRENT DRIVEN TURBINES, FOR INSTANCE ). ONCE PEOPLE GET THIS SET-UP AND RUNNING A LOT OF THE DEPENDENCE ISSUES START GOING AWAY. I can’t wait to read your proposal, FINALLY, NONE OF THIS WILL EVER GET OFF THE GROUND UNLESS SOME PEOPLE, LIKE ISLANDER PR’S ARE READY TO GO TELL SOME FOLKS TO GO FUCK THEMSELVES. AND, UNTIL THE COURAGE GET’S TO WHERE IT NEEDS TO GET….ALLI TE QUEDAS. ENCABRONADO. or Mr. Denis’, on where we should pursue.

Don’t get too emotional. I am use to bad news. I want real solutions to the political status of PR. I am PRO-STATEHOOD. I posted why I feel this way in a previous post. You do not say anything in your reply. The path for an independent republic will require the spill of blood. I don’t think Puerto Ricans will go for that. It is easy to describe the symptoms of why the Puerto Rican relationship with the U,S, is not what it should be, but appealing to anti-USA rhetoric, will not advance the cause. PR has a strong case to argue in Congress to become the 51st State of the Union. We are bigger than a hand full of states like Rhode Island or Vermont. We are closer to the main land than Alaska and Hawaii. We already are U.S. citizens (since 1917, look it up). We need to press for statehood. It’s the only non-violent path. What is your solution? I can’t wait to read your proposal, or Mr. Denis’, on where we should pursue.

croc60
July 4, 2015
Nelson Denis has provided a good expose’ on the history of PR in this book; however, I do not see or read any solutions to what to do next. First, we must secure our political status: 1) Independent Republic , or 2) U.S. State 51. Once either path is secured or guaranteed (many hurdles here, will write about it later), then we can achieve self-governance or be a U.S. State with true representation in Congress with ALL the rights written in the U,S. Constitution. I am curious, Mr. Denis, which path do you prefer or recommend. Your readers deserve an answer.

Daniel Rivera
Viera FL
San Juan Boricua living in Florida, 56 years old

GOT BAD NEWS FOR YOU DANIEL. THE CONGRESS DOESN’T WANT PR TO BE A 51ST STATE OR INDEPENDENT. YOUR QUESTION IS TRITE AND IS ONE THAT’S BEEN PUT FORWARD BY MANY A PR. AND, THE ANSWER FROM THE CONGRESS HASN’T CHANGED DURING YOUR 56 YRS OF LIFE. SO, WHAT’S YOUR SOLUTION?? TOO MANY PR’S WAN’T SOMEONE ELSE TO “DO IT” OR “FIGURE IT OUT” FOR THEM. WHY DON’T YOU AND SOME OTHERS COME UP WITH A SOLUTION? DON’T YOU THINK THAT 117 YRS OF QUEJANDO IS ENOUGH??

Nelson Denis has provided a good expose’ on the history of PR in this book; however, I do not see or read any solutions to what to do next. First, we must secure our political status: 1) Independent Republic , or 2) U.S. State 51. Once either path is secured or guaranteed (many hurdles here, will write about it later), then we can achieve self-governance or be a U.S. State with true representation in Congress with ALL the rights written in the U,S. Constitution. I am curious, Mr. Denis, which path do you prefer or recommend. Your readers deserve an answer.

Daniel Rivera
Viera FL
San Juan Boricua living in Florida, 56 years old

nilda I castillo Roman
June 17, 2015
I am so so so sad and mostly angry at how these people manipulated and destroyed this nation and all those innocent human beings because of their wickedness evil greed . Is inhumane. They will have to answer to a higher being someday.

Nilda, I think that many PR’s who’ve experienced the manipulations exercised by a colonial rule feel similarly. Most talk about it. Most also don’t do anything about it. Yes, it IS uncivilized and inhumane. But, the funny thing is, is that it’s still going on right now. The island is going to hell in an even bigger hand-basket… with no safety net readily available. It seems that far too many PR’s take a fatalistic approach to their past and current condition, with no real and effective plan to do anything really constructive about it to solve the dilemma ( as other nations in past have done ). Even if that means thinking outside of the box. It’s likely taken as a signal by the ruling elite that the PR’s don’t really care enough. So, they ( The U.S. ) keep up the oppression. Instead of relegating the colonial power elites to the answering to a higher being in the next life, why not take effective steps to confronting the problem head-on now? The lamenting will never solve the problem. It never has.

Mr. Denis, wish to asked you , in your research especially on the FBI files did you find anything on the young poet, nationalist that die very young, age 24, Hugo Margenat Mediavilla. He was a brilliant writer and poets who died 1957 at the age of 24,
Maria

Thank you for writing this extremely important book. It should be mandatory reading for all U.S. citizens both on the mainland and on the island. Now I realize that what my wife has been telling me all these years is in no way exaggerated. I have sent a copy to President Obama and suggested that he issue an official apology to the people of Puerto Rico. Hope a spanish version comes out soon.

I am so so so sad and mostly angry at how these people manipulated and destroyed this nation and all those innocent human beings because of their wickedness evil greed . Is inhumane. They will have to answer to a higher being someday.

Such a sad history for us Puerto Ricans, but what a great privilege to read about it in a concise, well written book. Ever since I started reading it, I have been sharing the book and some of the info found within it to my Puerto Rican friends, family, and co-workers.

My parents were from that time and they left Puerto Rico because they were having a hard time in the island but still had a hard time here to the rich are buying out the homes for millions of dollars and the poor are going to have nothing

Mr .Denis, My name Is Waller B Booth II, .Waller Booth is my uncle. I would love to ask you some questions. I am working on a biography for my family. Puerto Rico has been a complete blank for me. Also I would like to do it in a more private setting.

Obviously I need to get a hold of this book, because it jump right at Me when it has to do with my Heritage, My People, I read a little and a lot of the comments which they made a lot of sense. l Love My Borinquen the Island that saw me grow up, My Beautiful PUERTO RICO…

A motivating discussion is worth comment. I believe that you need to publish more about this subject, it might not be a taboo matter but generally people
don’t talk about these subjects. To the next! Many thanks!!

I seldom drop remarks, however after browsing through some of the responses on this page WAR AGAINST ALL PUERTO RICANS
| Nelson A. Denis. I actually do have 2 questions for you if
it’s okay. Is it just me or do some of the remarks look as if they are written by brain dead individuals?
😛 And, if you are posting on additional online sites, I would like to keep up with you.
Would you post a list of every one of all your public sites like your Facebook page,
twitter feed, or linkedin profile?

God bless you Nelson. I just read a few excerpts of your book and I was appalled by what I read. I had no idea of what my great grandparents and aunts and uncles lived through. I’ve heard of some of the shootiings, but not the evil governors appointed to PR. Where in NYC will you be on June 7th and the time. Maybe I can leave church early. Thank you for writing this book. Que Dios te Bendiga.

i was also born in 1954 in Juncos, Puerto Rico…and wow….wow….this really blows me away and it stirs my heart with a reality that my people suffered the indignities and cruelty of a nation that hides behind the laws that they themselves put into effect……and there will always be the cry of the blood that was shed from a people who just wanted to be free… ” Que viva la razz Puertoriquena…. Que viva Puerto Rico” Thank you for this post… God Bless you Mi Sangre👍

We will be having our 2nd Oscar – Mandela Protest March on Monday, June 22, 2015. We will start marching peacefully at 9 AM from Hunter College on East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, to East 43rd Street and Lexington Avenue. We will then go East (turning left) to end up at the Ralph Bunche Park on First Avenue (across from the United Nations).

We will be at the park until 5 PM. We will be giving out flyers and talking to people about who Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera is. We will also be educating the public about Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the government of the United States (US).

Most people don’t know that every year, usually on the Monday after Fathers’ Day, the United Nations holds its hearing about the decolonization of Puerto Rico. The petitioners will usually join our protest after this meeting.

The UN determined in 1960 that colonialism is a crime against humanity. Since then, the UN has issued 33 resolutions asking for the US government to immediately decolonize Puerto Rico. The US government has ignored these resolutions. What kind of democracy is that?

The US government tries to keep these hearings a secret. What we are trying to do is to get them out of the closet. The UN is in its 3rd decade trying to make the world colony-free. Please help us!

Most people also don’t know that the United States government takes out 14 times more money than what it invests in Puerto Rico. But, that is what colonies are for!

This savage exploitation impedes Puerto Rico’s ability to provide opportunities for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. That is why there are now more Puerto Ricans living away from Puerto Rico than in their homeland.

Oscar López Rivera has been incarcerated for 34 years for his struggle to decolonize Puerto Rico. Since colonialism is an international crime, international law gives Oscar the right to use whatever means necessary to decolonize his homeland. Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years for doing the same thing as Oscar. This is why we say, Oscar López Rivera is our Nelson Mandela!

United Partners for Puerto Rico Decolonization invites the public to be part of the tsunami of people that will be necessary to make the US government comply with the UN resolutions. These annual protests in Puerto Rico and at the UN are absolutely necessary, because, those who maintain colonies, don’t believe in justice for all!

All Puerto Ricans whom are over the age of 21 and literate ( doesn’t matter whether it’s in spanish/english ), have an obligation/responsibility to learn about their history on their own time. Esp. the islander’s. Most of the info revealed in this book has been readily available and easily accessible for for decades now. So, MOST Puerto Ricans are responsible for their own ( likely self-induced ) ignorance about the reality of their current relationship with everyone else ( non-pr ) around them. The signs/symptoms have been there forever. Denial/Fear, and not wanting to accept the reality is probably mostly to blame. So, Robert… I don’t “get” your comment. Despiertate.

As a Puerto Rican born in Ponce in 1954. It saddens me that due to historic ignorance many Puerto Rican’s today are nothing but the ass kissers of the United States government. I am now 61 yrs old & retired from the U.S. Army living in San Antonio, Texas. And many of the Puerto Ricans here just make me sick and disgusted to even know they are my own people.